by Joseph Hoff
images courtesy of David Thomas

Let’s just imagine for a moment that you’re a painter. You see the world in a swirl of color. You can see things that others cannot. You might capture beauty in the intricate design of a flower, the greenish hue in the sky, the lights flickering on a slick city street, or the serenity of a village woman sitting in the shade under a hospitable tree. Abounding in spirit, you have the capacity to soar—not unlike a songbird.

Now, imagine sitting down to paint a scene after somebody has slipped a blindfold over your eyes. You are no longer free to let the scene move you. Rather, the palette of color has been selected for you. The only forces directing you are a coercive voice telling you what to paint and an ironfisted mechanism that seizes your hand with the paintbrush therein and drags it back and forth across the canvas.

When the picture is finished, it looks like nothing more than an episode of scribbling. You haven’t any idea what you painted. In fact, you might as well be dead to the impulse that goads a painter to work. After all, muse is a taboo. To tap into it is to risk being subversive. It is to risk your precious freedom—possibly life itself. You are a caged bird, whose song has been silenced.

This was the predicament in which many Vietnamese painters found themselves at one time. Prior to Doi Moi in 1987, many of these artists were unable to express themselves with any sort of freedom. To render a still life, abstraction, or nude was to engage in subversive activity. That has changed, however. Once merely propaganda, Vietnamese art is currently sought after because it is both desirable and collectible.

Perhaps the transformation is most evident in the work of a group of Vietnamese painters known as “The Gang of Five,” whose members include Ha Tri Hieu, Tran Luan, Hong Viet Dung, Dang Xuan Hoa, and Pham Quang Vinh. They are all natives of Ha Noi and attended the Fine Arts University. Today, they are in their 40s, and the observers most familiar with the art scene in Ha Noi call them the most promising painters of their generation, which stems in large part from their tendencies to bridge Vietnamese tradition and the elements of modernity.

“They were like five brothers,” explains David Thomas, an artist and teacher at the Massachusetts College of Art who has befriended members of The Gang of Five. “They were like a little family.”

The artists do not share a common artistic lineage. Rather, the group was created by Duong Tuong, a translator-critic in Ha Noi. He owned the Mai Gallery, which was the first privately-operated gallery in Ha Noi. It is run from the living room of his house. Duong Tuong has a discerning eye for art and chose the five artists. Although his initial selection of the artists amounted to a marketing gimmick, their work eventually made a lasting impression on the public. Duong Tuong became a prophet of sorts.

“There isn’t a common thread that I can see stylistically with the five artists,” says Thomas. “They were tainted by the world around them.”

The members of The Gang of Five choose to paint a variety of subject matter, which ranges from landscapes to still lifes to abstract works. The majority of Ha Tri Hieu’s work is based on country and farming life. Many families left for the countryside with the bombing of Ha Noi, and the exodus is reflected in the artist’s paintings. Tran Luan has chosen to paint the abstract underwater world. He has worked in oil as well as watercolor and does installation art. He is an important artist for his willingness to be political. Tran is also someone who serves as a mentor to young artists. Hoang Viet Dung is a painter whose work has become more refined, but his style has remained the same. Although Dang Xuan Hoa has been fairly traditional in the past, his work now is much more bold and abstract. Pham Quang Vinh still paints but has devoted much of his energy of late to his foray into the publishing business.

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